🇻🇪 Pastor Maldonado

Pastor Maldonado is a retired professional racing driver who competed across single-seater championships and endurance racing from 2004 to 2019. Rated 5,985 on the Elo scale, he sits in the established professional band. He holds FIA Platinum grading for endurance racing, the sport's highest classification in that discipline. His main career was spent in open-wheel racing; he drove primarily for Rapax in the GP2 Series and later for Williams in Formula 1.[1]

Maldonado won the 2010 GP2 Series championship with Rapax, taking 10 wins across 54 starts in the series. He stepped up to Formula 1 in 2011 and spent five seasons there through 2015, predominantly with Williams; his sole victory came in the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix. Across 96 Formula 1 starts he recorded one podium finish beyond that win. His earlier single-seater career included seasons in Formula Renault Eurocup and Formula V8 3.5, where he accumulated three wins in each. In 2018 and 2019 he raced in endurance competition for DragonSpeed, taking one WEC win and one IMSA WeatherTech victory in his eight endurance starts.[2]

In single-seater racing Maldonado raced alongside future multiple Formula 1 champions and generational-level drivers. He finished ahead of Max Verstappen four times and Lewis Hamilton twice in open-wheel competition. Against drivers who became his most frequent open-wheel opponents, he was closely matched with 2011 GP2 Series champion Romain Grosjean but typically finished behind Sergio Pérez, an elite professional who logged far more extensive careers in both Formula 1 and GP2. His 96 Formula 1 starts placed him among Williams's most-used drivers, though the team's strongest driver measured by rating was George Russell, who drove there later.